GasMacc1
Les Bradd
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Post by GasMacc1 on Aug 3, 2020 9:02:07 GMT
Make the best out of a bad situation. ? Me? Hunched over computer. Pre-lockdown, I used ifollow for some of the (Away) mid-week matches, the (Home) cup games and the Sunderland home match. Positives: Saved, per match, £40 fuel, £20 ticket and maybe six hours travel / waiting time, for a £10 i-follow purchase. Negatives: I found it almost unbearably stressful! When you are at the match, you can take in the full picture on the field. The camera angle and "director's decisions" mean that you don't know what's just out of shot. When we're defending, I assume the worst! For the coming season, as a STH, I expect to watch some (all?) matches on ifollow. As laughingsas said, it will be making the best out of a bad situation. I look forward to seeing some of the away games on ifollow, though, which ordinarily I wouldn't get to. I assume Rovers, not the home club, would get revenue, if I buy an ifollow-pass for an away game on my registered Rovers' ifollow account? In normal circumstances, the revenue would go to the home club. Of course, the converse also applies: Rovers will miss out on revenue from away fans. So, in the spirit of making the best out of a bad situation, how could the loss of ticket revenue from fans attending the games be mitigated? Maybe ifollow can help out? Rovers would take about £1000 from 50 travelling Cod-Army fans for a Rovers v Fleetwood game. If 500 Rovers fans bought an ifollow-pass @ £10 each for the reverse fixture, Rovers would get 70% of £5,000 = £3,500. At the other extreme, Rovers would take about £30,000 from 1,500 travelling Sunderland fans. If 1000 Rovers fans bought an ifollow-pass @ £10 each for the reverse fixture, Rovers would get 70% of £10,000 = £ 7,000. For a more typical fixture, Rovers would take about £6,000 from 300 travelling fans visiting the Mem. If 500 Rovers fans bought an ifollow-pass @ £10 each for the reverse fixture, Rovers would get 70% of £5,000 = £3,500.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 25, 2020 21:32:29 GMT
The all-blue backs remind me of the Archie Stephens - Paul Randall days, "1-0 down, 3-1 up, we knocked C*&y out the Cup".
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 18, 2020 21:22:32 GMT
League One and League Two clubs would have to operate under squad salary caps, according to proposals put forward by the English Football League. Link to BBC Article on Salary Cap for League One and League Two
"It is suggested clubs would have a season's grace in which to comply with the new measures, while clubs relegated from the Championship would also require a transition period given the disparity in player earnings and income between the second and third tiers".
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 14, 2020 9:19:51 GMT
I'm glad Lee Hendrie on Sky nominated the Wycombe defender Stewart as Man of the Match. It was well-deserved on the day. He scored the first goal (deflected in off the Oxford keeper) and made at least four crucial interceptions on the edge of the six yard box.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 8, 2020 10:36:22 GMT
No need to be put off by "Zoom".
I expect the club will make available joining instructions with a link you have to click on and perhaps an ID code and password for the meeting.
There might be a small piece of software to download.
If your computer has a microphone and speaker you should not need to do anything else: just listen in, or join in the conversation.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 8, 2020 10:31:05 GMT
This sounds like a good opportunity. I'm hoping to attend. At the moment, I'm not sure which of the dozens of issues brought up on this forum I would select to question the new board.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 6, 2020 19:10:04 GMT
Fleetwood 1-0 up just before the first half drinks break. (4-2 down on agg). Game on!
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jul 3, 2020 13:13:37 GMT
Rovers celebrate their Centenary as a league club in August elected to the newly formed third division South in 1920. We wore white shirts and navy shorts and were nicknamed the lilywhites. I presume Mr Gorringe would be aware of this. Good marketing opportunity - maybe commemorative 3rd strip with the original colours? T-shirts / polo shirts with "100 - 38" emblazoned across them? Or "BRFC - Bristol's oldest professional football Club - by a margin of 62 years". The strap-line on the 2020-21 season-ticket promotion is "Football With Tradition", so I think he's already playing that card in a subtle (?) way. It's clearly aimed at differentiating us from another local enterprise that is not yet 40 years old.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jun 25, 2020 14:26:18 GMT
Rovers paid £141,006 to agents and intermediaries in season 2019-20. Within League One, six clubs paid more, though Fleetwood, MK Dons and Posh were in the same ball park as Rovers. At well over £300k each , Coventry and Ipswich paid more than double. And Sunderland laid out £1.35 million!! At the other end of the scale, Accrington, Wycombe and Gills paid about £30k or less. Bolton paid nothing. For comparison, the fees paid in the Championship ranged from Charlton (£304k) and Barnsley (£312k) all the way up to Brentford, Cardiff, Fulham and Leeds, who all paid over £3 million, and Swansea and Stoke, who topped £5 million!! City1982 shelled out £1.9m., the tenth highest total. In League Two, Bradford, Scunthorpe and Salford City all paid more than £100k. The transactions for which Rovers paid agents fees were for Mark Little (Bolton Wanderers), Josh Hare (Eastleigh), Tom Davies (Coventry), Anssi Jaakola (Reading), Jordi van Stappershoef (FC Volendam), Alfie Kilgour (BRFC , updated registration), Josh Barrett (Reading), Cian Harries (Swansea) and James Daly (Crystal Palace). (Former clubs in parenthesis). Agents Fees 2019-2020
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jun 12, 2020 17:10:58 GMT
I think it was a match on Sky, City82 v someone else, and a propos of nothing, the Sky pre-match interviewer brought up the Rovers rivalry.
As I remember it, Lansdown's reply could just have been "why do you mention Rovers, they are nothing to do with us", but the actual words out of his mouth were "I don't think we'll have to worry about them". So there was a double meaning: either "it's irrelevant to the match you are about to televise" or "we intend to establish a dominant empire that will crush them out of existence and indeed will strain every sinew to achieve that end".
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jun 6, 2020 15:48:26 GMT
The article is by David Conn. I used to enjoy reading his articles in the Independent.
Even before football was plunged into crisis by the Covid-19 pandemic, influential people in the game were discussing the need for the Premier League’s improbable fortunes to be shared more equally. As historic, stalwart lower-division and semi-professional clubs stare at ruin, and promised investment could drain from the grassroots, the argument is finally beyond credible dispute.
However the Premier League resolves its struggle to finish this season so that it can clutch the remainder of the TV money, it will still be a huge draw for broadcast billions when normal life finally returns. The pre-pandemic position, that the big clubs keep 93% of the current, 2019-22, £8.65bn TV deals, handing most of it to players in wages while trickling drops down for good works, does not look sustainable following the crisis.
Some sceptics raised eyebrows when the EFL chairman, Rick Parry, made his forthright arguments that football’s finances need a reset and described Premier League parachute payments as an “evil that must be eradicated”. Football people who are getting on a bit recall Parry as the energetic first Premier League chief executive, engineering its breakaway with the Football League’s First Division clubs, and the introduction, in 1992, of parachute payments for relegated clubs.
But Parry’s advocacy for financial reform, much more urgent and necessary now, is not a case of amnesia from the work he did earlier in his career. When he was headhunted by the EFL last year, in what seemed a turbulent period but now seems like a lost utopia, Parry is understood to have reminded people that he has long advocated closer union, and more distribution, between the leagues.
As early as 1995, with the 72 clubs in the Football League’s three divisions still seething at the breakaway of the top division teams from sharing 50% of the TV money, Parry offered to repair some of the breach. Looking to the second round of TV deals beginning in 1997, he secured agreement from the Premier League’s clubs to sell the rights jointly with the Football League, and share the proceeds 80-20.
The Football League’s response caused a huge internal row at the time, since filed away with all the other huge football rows, because the board rejected the offer. Larger clubs in what is now the Championship were furious at that missed opportunity for more sharing with the Premier League and it led to reforms, including Richard Scudamore’s appointment as the Football League’s chief executive in 1997.
Scudamore was highly rated as an operator and was promptly snapped up by the Premier League, where he came to personify its resounding worldwide growth in popularity and unfeasible broadcast fortunes. Scudamore was also an unforgiving fighter for its independence and supremacy, beating back the FA’s influence as the governing body, and cementing and widening the gap with the EFL.
Tested by government or MPs’ inquiries into the game’s divisions and commercial casualties, Scudamore also became expert at gaming political battles and doing enough to resist talk of regulation. He did prompt the Premier League into good works it is never slow to trumpet in front of governments: the community programmes, funding for grassroots facilities, and money to the EFL, touchingly described as “solidarity”. As the figures are scrutinised in these straitened times, and discounting the £273m parachute payments the Premier League likes to present as money for the EFL, the total distribution has been clarified as 6.8%.
Before the crisis hit, the discussion about more sharing was not just limited to the EFL. Some Premier League clubs, for whom relegation is a possibility, were beginning to argue for change too. Surprisingly, there is said to be some support even among the top clubs for the longstanding traditions of distributing money, genuine solidarity and strength in depth.
The argument against sharing, that the top clubs need to keep more of the money to attract players who can compete in Europe, has been rendered redundant by the Premier League’s success. Its TV deals are more than double those of the next richest European league, the Bundesliga, so the clubs can easily share more than 20% now and still be utterly dominant.
League Two clubs have decided to curtail their season, League One clubs are considering the same, and many are wondering how their futures can be sustained. These clubs say there is no point borrowing from the government’s crisis scheme, because loans will need to be repaid and they may still have paltry income next season if crowds remain prohibited. But if they know that from 2022 they will receive significant funding from joint Premier League and EFL selling of TV rights, they could borrow against that and plot a survival plan.
Before the general election, the FA was given the very surprising promise from the Conservative party of £730m for grassroots investment over the next 10 years, but that must now be in doubt. However, the need to have decent sports facilities for people to maintain and rebuild their physical and psychological fitness will be more compelling than ever in the period of national recovery to come.
The grim, greedy insistence that a few clubs must keep so much of football’s money has been damaging for years and now, in this terrible crisis, the game faces a compelling case to put itself back together again.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
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Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Jun 5, 2020 16:44:15 GMT
Not our greatest XI while playing for us, but more before and after their time at the Rovers. Here's what I've come up with... RB - Jim Young
Young spent the 1902/03 season at the Rovers before moving North of the boarder to Celtic. In his time in the East End of Glasgow he won fifteen majors honours (nine league titles and six Scottish Cups). He made one appearance for Scotland and played for the Scottish League six times. (I'll be honest I'm not entirely sure if Young featured in a first team match, Harry Buckle?).
According to "Bristol Rovers F.C. A Complete Record", Jim Young played nineteen League matches for Rovers in 1902/1903. He also played* in the three FA Cup matches and three Gloucestershire Cup matches that season. He scored no goals - for Rovers. The other book, "Bristol Rovers F.C. The Official Definitive History", makes clear that Jimmy Young scored an own-goal in the 2-0 defeat away at QPR on 7th March 1903. * Six cup matches in total in 1902/03 against only two teams. In the FA Cup (5th Qualifying Round), Rovers drew 2-2 at home to Millwall, then 0-0 away (the game being "abandoned through bad light"), before falling to a 2-0 defeat in a second replay played at Villa Park. In the Glos. Cup, a 0-0 draw at home against City was followed up by a 1-1 draw away. Rovers then won the Gloucestershire Cup for the first time, with a 4-2 victory!
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on May 3, 2020 7:43:14 GMT
I had either forgotten about McDowell in connection with Rovers, or you've created a false memory!
Anyway, I've looked in both the Rovers Definitive History and the -1986 History books. There is no mention of McDowell in the narrative for the seasons 1981-82 and 1982-83, nor in the list of players (who actually played).
(There is a mention of Gary Pendrey, however, in the Assistant Manager role).
Bobby Gould was manager, though, and would probably have been a team-mate of McDowell in his time at West Ham.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Mar 21, 2020 14:05:32 GMT
(Just to prove I wasn't making it up - written Jul 29, 2018 at 9:52am): I always do my very best to see the first and last game of the season. However this time - I am boycotting this game. £26 is too much for tier 3 football (I presume rising to £28 pay on the day). I am not going to any away game that charges £25 or more. End of. The only way to make a difference is to not go. (Note the average price of a Premiership away ticket is £26.50). I know there are some die-hards who watch every game - and fair play to them. I watch around 6-8 away games a season - Peterborough is definitely not going to be one of them. I understand your reasons. For me, though, Posh (A) is one of the best away days. It's accessible by train, only a short walk to the ground from the station, it's a(n) historic city and there's a pub on a barge on the river! (See my pics from the last three away days in Peterborough). I'm so glad I spent £40 on my Advanced (non-refundable) train tickets for today's game, plus the match ticket, of course. ^ Click on the image ^. Clockwise from top left: Charters, excellent pub on the River Nene; Peterborough's 900-year-old cathedral; the Butter Cross (site of historic dairy market); the River Nene; the Cathedral again, in the distance; the 1950's wooden seats (very similar to those at Eastville, one of which I have in my garden); swans; Gasheads in the beer garden of the Charters pub/barge; ecclesiastical decorations; a cappuccino.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Mar 10, 2020 22:13:50 GMT
Despite liking the look of JML, and Daly when he came on, I felt sick when Keith Brookman and Richard Hoskin started talking in the 84th minute as if Rovers had already won the game. It only takes a second to score a goal, and Sunderland had just brought on a £4m substitute striker! But the moment I started to believe we might actually be on for the win was when the ref gave us a goal-kick on about 91 minutes and their player - O'Nine, O'Neen, Onion, or whatever his name was - just walked over to retrieve the ball, with no sense of urgency. It looked as though they'd given up. Well played, Rovers!
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Mar 7, 2020 10:45:25 GMT
Best display I've seen this season was at Shrewsbury when we scored 4 without JCH.What a display that was.Bunny Hare and Sercs outstanding. Bunny Hare! Nicely coined nickname! Sorry to let light in on magic, but Hare didn't play at Shrewsbury! Who were you thinking of? It was a fantastic day though, I agree.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Feb 24, 2020 9:28:34 GMT
I'm not quite as pessimistic as Bambi, but he has a point. The 'Plan' is flawed. 1. To unearth these fantastically talented footballers we are in competition with a host of other Clubs. Over time our facilities have become increasingly unattractive. Why would a young player come here to help pick fox sh*t off of a field we don't even own before commencing training? IMHO the fact that we lack of our own Training Facility is even more damning than our inadequate Stadium, that has long been unfit for purpose. 2. Should we strike it lucky - then the talent is off as soon as we attract a decent bid, or even a crap bid (Bodin). Or they run down their contract and leave for nothing (Lockyer). I actually like the look of what Ben Garner is trying to achieve given the current situation. All we are short of is two decent full-backs, two players to replace Ginelli and JML when their loan period finishes, and a decent creative mid-fielder. Piece of piss. Given the over-whelming odds that Ben Garner faces - I'm backing him. Logic dictates the chances of success are slim. But I'm still backing him. UTG & Keep The Faith. Good post. Just one thing, though. How would a £10million training complex prevent foxes defaecating on the pitches?
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Feb 20, 2020 9:08:53 GMT
Chance for keyboard warriors to ask the difficult questions I've tried to ask those difficult questions in one to one conversations but I am always told on advance "Do not ask me anything regarding the stadium." Will next Wednesday be different, if so I might make the drive up for the event? I completed the survey, but won't be making the 300-mile round trip from Cheshire to attend next Wednesday. The exercise is clearly focused on the "Matchday Experience", so issues of strategic vision, corporate governance and ongoing business sustainability might be ruled out of scope, I would have thought. (However, see point about feedback, below). From the e-mail I (and other survey respondents) received yesterday: Like the previous event, the focus of this meeting will be solely on the Matchday Experience and we hope that this meeting will continue the on-going dialogue to help make gradual improvements, building the foundations for future progression.
The meeting will be attended by myself [Tom Gorringe ], our Head of Catering, Andy Lilley, our Young Pirates Coordinator Sophie Morgan and our new Stadium Manager Shaun Roberts. However, feedback for other departments will be passed on and any changes or responses reported back at future meetings.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Feb 17, 2020 17:04:04 GMT
On the other hand, if your approach is to make sure you stay in the game for the first hour, then loosen up and "unleash your potential" (to coin a phrase), the Clarke / Ogogo / Upson triumvirate is a good bet to start. Bringing on Barrett and/or Abraham for the last phase of the match fits that strategy perfectly.
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GasMacc1
Les Bradd
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Posts: 1,423
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Post by GasMacc1 on Feb 16, 2020 11:16:55 GMT
Try to get back on topic.. Anyone notice when we went to 4-4-2, more players became active? I think BG was too slow to react to that yesterday.. Yes, we became more effective, thanks to the changes BG made in the last quarter. I think we still might have scored those goals and won the match even if Blackpool had not had the player sent off.
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